


Touch

by Callali



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Children, Developing Relationship, Domestic, Drabble Collection, Drabbles, F/M, Intimacy, Marriage, Queen in the North, Winterfell, non-linear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-19 16:58:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 9,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3617361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callali/pseuds/Callali
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of ramblings centered around the theme of physical touch. No real sequence or setting; you may fill in the blanks as you prefer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hour of the Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> These are...drabbles, I suppose? I am relatively new to ASOIAF, and relatively new to Sansa and Sandor. I haven't written a single sentence of fiction since my last creative writing assignment in high school. I have never written fanfiction. I own nothing. I know nothing. Have mercy.

She wonders what it is about the hour of the wolf that either brings peace or torment. This night, it is the latter. She lies still among the furs, feels the persistent thrum of her heartbeat, listens to her husband’s slow, heavy breaths. All is in its place in the dark quiet, yet her mind refuses to rest. Sometimes shadows come for her in the night: shadows of her past, or maybe some other girl’s past, sometimes she isn’t sure. Sometimes, in her dreams, it is as though she is still living among liars and monsters.

If only she could push these thoughts from her mind. A deep, dreamless sleep would be best. Almost of its own accord, her leg snakes backward to brush itself against her husband’s knee. His breathing barely changes at all. Unsatisfied, she nudges his knee a bit harder. Sandor is nothing if not predictable—his arm goes around her middle like an iron band and he draws her into the heat of his body. His breath tickles the back of her neck, but she doesn’t mind. He is warmth and possession and comfort.

And, finally, she sleeps.


	2. Petting

He pretends not to like being petted.

When she begins to stroke his hair, or his face, or his arm, he might bat her hand away once or twice. He feels hideous under her gaze and her fingertips, wonders how she can stand to lay hands on him. But, the truth is, he likes to be scratched and petted like the old dog he is. She knows that he’s grumpy and a brute, and she is likely to get barked at for petting him, but she doesn’t care. She does it anyway.

Sometimes, when her soft little hands are ghosting across his skin, leaving soft little affections on the whole and the marred alike, he wonders how he ever lived without it.


	3. Kissing Games

Sandor doesn’t have the slightest idea about how to kiss a woman. Sansa knows this, but she takes an odd, jealous comfort in his clumsiness. She knows he has _been_ with other women, of course, but she doubts he has spent much time kissing them, loving them, being loved by them. They both have much to learn in that regard.

The burned side feels…strange, she must admit. It doesn’t bother her, not truly. She makes sure not to show a preference. She makes sure to never, ever show any hesitation around any of his scars. He would notice. He would notice, and start brooding about it, or worse, start drinking about it. And besides, she doesn’t want him to stop kissing her.


	4. Prelude

He is not a naturally gifted lover; that much is certain. He may be…endowed, but he is not gifted. He is not sure how to touch her, not in the beginning, and not for some time after. The first time, she allows him into her body as she has allowed no other, wanted no other. She knows that he is a man possessed; he is drunk on the feeling of being wanted, being invited, and he falls upon her body like she is a shade in a fever dream, likely to turn to mist in his hands. With sudden clarity she knows that she is sovereign in this arrangement. She thinks if she told him to take his own dagger and push it between his ribs, he just might, if that is what she wanted. She does not reach her completion, does not come close. Instead she reaches an agreement with herself to trust this man with her body, to trust him with her most fragile self, and that is enough.

He collapses on top of her, and she feels a droplet that she suspects is not sweat upon her neck. Her chest constricts with something halfway between love and heartbreak. She feels a ridiculous desire to protect him, as if a flower could protect a bear. They will learn how to please each other in time, she is sure. They will learn how to heal each other.


	5. Playing with Fire

Sandor is not so changed from what he was before. Just like her father’s greatsword, returned to Winterfell at last, he has been broken and remolded, and broken and remolded again. He has been remade, yet he remains as he ever was—hard, true, sharp. Dangerous. Just like Ice. Sansa would not have it any other way. She should not provoke him, but she does sometimes. She presses her lips against his, hard, drawing blood. She breathes into the embers of Sandor Clegane and conjures the Hound, if only for the night.

In the morning she will sport bruises in the shape of his fingertips and his back will be marked by her talons. They will look at each other and silently acknowledge the darkness that ever remains, the scars from previous lives. But those are thoughts for candlelit corridors, and the morning sunlight chases them away.


	6. Holy Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you who left encouraging words. I've been sitting on these for a while, lacking the courage to post them, and I am so excited to have feedback. This one is a bit longer, and I hope the feelings that I'm trying to convey come through. I hope to post more sometime next week.

Morning is her favorite time of day. Sunlight bursts through windows and doorways and arrow slits, brazen and shimmering, like the saving charge of a battle thought lost. Dust floats lazily through the air, and she feels peaceful and energized at once, as though her soul has been washed clean.

There is something to be said, however, for the other kind of morning. The misty gray morning that sneaks in between cracks in shutters and caresses the room with its mysterious light. A slow, seeping morning—it whispers that the terror has nearly passed, holds its children close in the half-darkness.

Nights are often unkind.

She and her husband both have scars on their souls, and tangles in their sheets, and fire in their dreams.

When he awakens first, he is a full-body curl around her slender frame, an insistent lust, but it is more than that. He cannot get close enough, because he needs to feel her, know her, become her. Sandor Clegane does nothing halfway.  In these sacred moments before the rest of the world comes rushing in, he drinks her like wine to the dying. He always will.

When her eyes open to find him still asleep, she savors the chance. She takes her look. His scars are ghastly, especially in this way, with beams of light streaming in and his hair veiling the pillow instead of his face. She catches him subtly maneuvering her to his good side on occasion, and it makes her chest ache for him. She is no longer a summer child. She has seen death and betrayal, illness and starvation, a winter come and gone, yet he thinks she dislikes a stretch of puckered flesh that is only one part of the man she loves and covets. So, while he can do nothing about it, she takes her look. And, when his morning-gray eyes blink open and look at her with a question, or a challenge, she takes her touch.


	7. No Masters or Kings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said no more until next week, but I couldn't sleep so I wrote something naughty. The title is taken from the last verse of Hozier's Take Me to Church, which to me just smacks of Sandor. I tried to make it hot without being explicit, but, as I said, I know nothing.

On their wedding night, he was selfish, and abrupt, and a monster. None of Sansa’s chirping can convince him otherwise. He hates himself for it, considers it his first failure as a husband. He assumes it will be the first of many.

But dogs aren’t stupid; they can learn new tricks. He watches her eyes to see where they wander, where they land; he watches them for any sign of discomfort. His hands roam her body, traveling, testing. He thinks that touching her must be blasphemy, more than any sack of any temple or sept has ever been. He is not such a fool to turn down the chance, and so he eagerly sins.

He waits for the flush in her cheeks, the arch of her back. He waits for the _thrum-thrum-thrum_ of her heartbeat, the clutch of her nails on his shoulders, the hitch in her breath. He waits for her hips to come up to meet his, and her moans to dance hotly on his neck, and for her body to tense up tight as a bowstring and take him in and for her to burn him like the _seven fucking bleeding hells_ _and wrap him in the light of the fucking gods above—_

Then, and only then, does he know the meaning of worship.


	8. Stretching Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know. Inspired by my tall friend, who has stretch marks everywhere.

He lays face-down in the furs, dozing in the flickering firelight, naked as his nameday and equally uncaring. She sits at her vanity, attempting to untangle the snarls he has left in her hair. Sandor has always loved her hair.

When she is better pleased with the state of affairs in her tresses, Sansa moves to rejoin her husband. She sits down primly on the edge of the bed, looking for a place to arrange herself among his casually-thrown limbs, and that is when she sees them. Thin, silvery marks decorate his shoulders, his back, and the backs of his knees. She can’t help but trace a single, feather-light fingertip across the worst of them, marveling at how they got there and how she has not noticed them by now. Stretching scars behind the knees—who ever heard of such a thing? It suddenly occurs to her that a man as large as her husband must have grown very much, very fast indeed, so it is no wonder. They are almost imperceptible, and nothing compared to the other marks he bears, but she records them in her mind all the same.

Suddenly, his body jerks, his head snaps up from the pillows, and he turns and looks at her as though she has just sprouted antlers, and that is how she finds out that he is ticklish behind the knees.


	9. Tremble

Her hands are shaking. They do that when she is nervous, or scared, or remembering. He thinks that’s why she stands the way she does—still as stone, hands clasped together earnestly in front of her. The perfect little lady.

Her hands are so small. He knows her strength, but she can seem so delicate, bird-hollow. He takes her hands gently and pulls them down until she rests them on her skirts instead. He cups the back of her neck and presses a kiss to her forehead. There is still apprehension in the way she holds herself, but her smile is true, and she even has the grace the blush.

He takes a step back and pinches her chin teasingly before turning to walk away; they both have their duties to tend to. He hopes no one was around to witness his _chivalry._ He’ll be Florian the fucking Fool before she’s done with him.


	10. Heat

She locked eyes with him across the crowded hall. He was standing against a wall, sulking. His expression was dark and dangerous on this night, and every time she looked at him, it sent a shiver down her spine. At times, she lost track of the activity around her—the commotion hushed, and the flickering firelight dimmed. She saw only him.

The man sitting next to her was beginning to upset her. He was a young northman, and surely he meant no harm. She considered it her duty as a lady to interact with her people, but this one was tipsy, and far too enthusiastic. Some of his ale sloshed out of his cup and onto the ground near her feet. When his hand reached out and touched her forearm, she decided it was time to make her apologies and take her leave.

When she stood and turned, she ran flush into Sandor, and steadied herself with her hands on his chest. She looked up to his face, but he was glaring daggers into the young man, who had seemingly remembered that he had urgent business elsewhere. She may have been somewhat tipsy herself, and a blush crept up to her cheeks from her husband’s sudden proximity. They were not newly married, but his heat always set her insides to fluttering all the same. She ran her hands over his tunic, because she was unsteady, and because it felt nice. His laugh, dark and low, rumbled in his chest.


	11. For the Taking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is, hopefully, naughty but not explicit. Smut is wonderful, but I want this series to be more about intimacy and the dynamics of their relationship. I feel like I've been posting too much, but like I said, I've been sitting on some of these lil' snippets for a while now. Thank you to all who have left comments and kudos--it is such a great feeling to have acceptance from fic writers I hold in high esteem.

He is not the only one who can learn new things.

The first time she backs him up to the featherbed, pushes on his shoulders, then settles herself to straddle his lap, she very nearly loses her nerve. So far, she has been sweet and receiving—this is too different, too new. When she pauses, so does he—his body tenses, his grip on her hips turns to steel, and his eyes search hers. He always watches; always waits for her cue. She remembers that this is her husband, this is Sandor, and she may do as she very well pleases.

With her mind made up, she cups both of his cheeks and claims his lips, kisses him instead of being kissed, brands his lips with her fire. Her heart hammers at the thought that she can be brash, she can be fierce, she can overtake him and mark him as her own. She’ll have a song from him.

She rides him clumsily, haltingly at first, without skill or grace, and she begins to feel embarrassed. But then she sinks down hard, hears him groan into her neck, and she finds her rhythm and purpose. With her knees on each side of him and her writhing body bared to the open air, she feels terribly indecent, but she feels something else that she cannot quite place, something between courage and control. He will not last, she realizes, and she watches with amazement as he comes undone beneath her, and it is his turn to be embarrassed. She does not care—she is giddy with her victory. She decides to take her husband more often.


	12. Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The readers have spoken. Here's another. There will be a follow-up to this one sometime tomorrow. Thank you so much for the kind comments. You make me want to cry like a little girl, or like Sandor Clegane, Grand Maester Crybaby, Man with Feelings(TM), Westerosi Pillow-wetter.

He thought that the only thing he could fear was fire, but that was before his little wife missed her moonblood.

He understood, of course, that this sort of thing tends to happen, especially when a husband is so enthusiastic about his duties. He must have known it was inevitable. But when she grabbed his hand and pressed it between her waist and her hips and lit up the room with her smile, it was a mailed fist in his gut and a heave in the back of his throat. Suddenly, there was his sister, there was Joff, and Arya and Sansa herself, all swimming around in his mind, mocking him. What child had ever known Sandor Clegane and fared better for it? But Sansa knew his fear as surely as she knew her own thumb, so she cupped his cheek like she had on that greenlit night, lifetimes ago. He managed not to weep this time.

She deserved some sort of reaction from him. He left his hand where she had put it, let the very tips of his fingers brush across the fabric of her dress, and smiled as much as a man with half a face can smile.

Later, he stalked off to the Godswood. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself when he got there, fool that he was. He sat in front of a large weirwood and fiddled absently with his blade, cleaning it on an oilcloth even though there was nothing to clean. He was far too stubborn to pray for a daughter with red hair, blue eyes, and a temperament nothing like his, but might be that he thought about it. The gods heard him nonetheless, and they laughed.


	13. Not Ungently

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fluff that was promised. I'm more comfortable in the realm of angst/fear/"it's complicated," so just bear with me through the sugary stuff.

She did not give him any choice: as soon as he sat next to her in the bed, she carefully but insistently placed his son in his arms. Then, she let her head drop onto the pillows. She was exhausted, but content.

He froze, still as stone, and stared at her. His eyes told her what she already knew—that he didn’t know how to hold the babe, and was scared of hurting him. She closed her eyes, shook her head, and patted his knee encouragingly. Sandor could be gentle—he is gentle with her, and he will be gentle with their son. He must do this, and he must do it now. She will not tolerate him being hesitant with their child.

She must have drifted off for a while, but after a few moments, she felt him shift. He settled more into the bed and adjusted the babe in his arms. When she opened her eyes, Sandor was trailing fingertips across the boy’s downy, dark hair, feather-light and cautious. She would not laugh at him for _petting_ their son, funny as it was, for she would do nothing to discourage him, and she was too tired to laugh, anyway.


	14. Bad Dog

Sansa watched her husband as he stood at the washbasin. He scrubbed his face and neck and pushed his damp hair over the burned side, as was his custom. His broad back was laid bare to her, and his breeches clung lazily to his hips, half-laced. At times he hid his face from her, but he never hid his body. She enjoyed his size, and his strength, and his warmth, and he knew it. She was terribly transparent in that regard, but she cared little and less for decorum behind her bedchamber doors, so she openly admired her husband, with both her eyes and her hands.

She stood behind him and traced the paths of water droplets down his shoulders and back, first with her fingers, and then with her lips. When he turned, she followed the waistband of his breeches across his hips and further down with her fingers, and pressed little kisses to his chest. He lifted her chin so that she met his eyes, and she hoped he meant to kiss her, but he shook his head and covered her in droplets of water instead.

He was still an irreverent cur at times, but she wouldn't have him any other way.


	15. Spellsinger

She was his lady, his wife, the mother of his child, but she was not only a woman to him. She was a warm weight above him, and she was his anchor, his shield. Her hair fell around him in auburn waves, and he could have been under the red weirwood branches in the Godswood, lying on sacred ground. His hands explored the curves and planes of her body, fuller now, and he was a man redeemed.

He put his hand behind her head and turned her over, landed her softly on the mattress and hovered above her. Her eyes locked with his and she looked at him, knew the sum of him, saw every light and shadow, and still she took him. He kissed her forehead, closed her eyes and kissed them both, because sometimes he could not bear it.

She could have been a statue; one carved from white stone and smoothed over until it shone coldly. She could have been a work of art, but she moved, and she _burned_ , burned like all the rage of fire and all the eternal stillness of ice. She could have been the Maiden, once, before she learned the alchemy of life, before she gave it. He pressed his ruined mouth to her perfect lips, he chased her silver tongue, and when she moaned for him, clenched and shook for him, it was with all the grace and melody of song.

He was undone. She ripped his heart out, shattered him and remade him in her image, time and time again. She lied beneath him as he found his breath; she stroked his hair, and blessed his shoulder with kisses. She did not know her power.


	16. The Night is Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School's about to get crazy, so this might be the last one for a while. Thank you to those who continue to read my snippets.

Sansa was stirred from her sleep. She stayed still for a moment, squinted into the darkness, and tried to think what could be amiss. She rolled over and reached her arm out, feeling for her husband’s familiar bulk. Her forearm encountered his bare chest, and then she knew.

His skin was hot and flushed as though with fever. His breathing was quick and shuddering, and when she placed her cool hand against his forehead, he flinched violently and woke. He usually calmed when he registered that he was with his wife, in his featherbed, but not on this night. On this night he lurched up and made to the privy, where she heard him lose his dinner, and probably some wine, too.

Earlier, a stack of logs had collapsed in the fireplace in their solar, scattering embers onto the stones and into the air. Their young son had been crawling on a rug nearby. No harm had come to the boy; not even close, but it takes little and less to spur a night of terrors, as she well knows. She did not have to ask Sandor what he dreamed of. She could imagine.

When he returned from the privy, slowly, unsteadily, she was sitting on the edge of the bed with a cup of water and a damp cloth. He sat down next to her stiffly, but he let her brush his hair back with her fingers and bathe his forehead. They had nights like this, the both of them. Nothing was ever said—after all, what could be said? They cared for each other in the ways they knew how, and that was enough. In the morning, they would go on as if nothing happened. Some things are too raw for the light of day.


	17. Brushstrokes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Sansa is coy, and Sandor is somewhat disgruntled.

Before bed, Sansa unfastens her simple jewelry, steps out of her slippers, and shrugs out of her northern woolens. She bathes herself with a damp cloth and splashes her face with cool water. She feels little droplets escape down her neck and onto her breasts before she pats herself dry. She slips into a clean shift, off-white, near translucent. She likes her routine, likes to think that she is washing the worry of the day away. And, perhaps she likes the way her husband reacts when she makes herself fresh and sweet-smelling. Perhaps she is a bit of a tease.

She saves brushing her hair for last, because it is her favorite. The bristles feel good gliding through the length of her hair. It is soothing. She remembers her mother brushing her hair, years ago. This is her way of calming herself, and her way of remembering.

Sometimes, she lets Sandor do it. He very much loves her hair, but there is always the chance he will leave it in more of a mess than it was when he came upon in. He prefers to relinquish the brush and use his hands instead. She savors the feeling of his callused fingers on her scalp, rubbing away the tension from her daytime plaits and twists. He traces her waves gently, examines them in the firelight. She wishes that he would compliment her with words more often, but that is not his way, and this is the next best thing.

She has even taught him how to weave her hair into a loose braid for bedtime, which he does occasionally. Perhaps she let it slip to one of her maids that her husband likes to braid her hair, and perhaps it has become a popular piece of gossip. Once or twice, her maids have set to giggling and tittering despite her best efforts to shush them, which makes Sandor very prickly and suspicious. It is surely unladylike to have such fun at her husband’s expense, but perhaps she is not quite as averse to being unladylike as she used to be.


	18. Small Mercies

He is determined not to be an old cripple.

He trains in the practice yard almost daily. He feels strong, fast. It feels good to hold a sword instead of a shovel; to swing and swivel and slash instead of bending and scooping, over and over and over again. He will never be as he once was—he can feel it in his balance, in his footwork. Yet he fights. His limp all but disappears.

When he’s alone, he’ll move and stretch this way and that, looking for a catch, looking for a shooting pain that might take him off guard. He fears the day that he steps wrong and his leg goes out beneath him. He has men to train, now. He mustn’t look a fool. And his son—he must last long enough to train his son, too. He fights, and stretches, and wanders around the keep, taking the steps two at a time.

All of his work he does in secret. He gives no voice to his fears, especially not to his little wife. He couldn’t stand for her to treat him like an invalid. She looks at him like he’s some sort of bloody hero, but maybe he doesn’t mind that so much. Could be that he likes it.

Could be that he likes her little hand rubbing across his thigh under the dinner table, kneading the tense muscles, because even though he tells her nothing, she knows. It always starts out as a treatment, as a means to an end: her fingers dance around his old wound, knowing just where the tension is, just where the pain is. Then it becomes something else entirely. She’ll caress his inner thigh, and maybe, maybe let the back of her hand brush against the result of her attentions. How cruel of her, he thinks, to ease one ache only to create a new one.


	19. Release

Sansa knows her strength. She knows what she has been through, and what she has conquered. She is not scared and powerless like she used to be.

That is not to say, however, that she never falters. Sometimes she is filled with a sickly, cold dread, and she cannot think why. It comes out of nowhere, wraps its icy hands around her throat, and will not let go. It has been so many years since she could show herself freely, and she no longer knows how. So she keeps her dread and fear and sadness with her, puts them behind a wall in her mind as they fight against their shackles. On the surface, nothing is amiss. She is a polite smile, a straight spine, a rhythmic swish of skirts as she goes about her duties.

It is a chase, of sorts: she goes to the Godswood in search of peace, and he goes to the Godswood in search of her. She may be able to hide herself away from the world, but not from her husband.

He knows enough of her to know when she is frozen in her skin. He knows her, has made a study of her, and for that she is grateful. She hugs her elbows and leans into the barrel of his chest, rests her cheek against his tunic. His arms go around her, taking his cloak with them, so that she is wrapped in his warmth. This place is safe: in the Godswood, in his arms, with no sound except for the scurry of animals and the beat of his heart like a war drum. Sometimes the tears come, and sometimes they do not, but that is not the point. The point is that it is safe to let go if she needs to, with only Sandor and the ancient, creaking trees to bear witness.


	20. Not Ungently II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A heartfelt thank you to all of you who continue to leave encouraging comments. This was started as an experiment, and I never thought it would go over this well. I hope to write something longer or more plot-oriented when summer comes along and I have time to think.

Being a father does not come easily to Sandor, at first. He is used to standing on the edges of families; standing in the shadows. He is used to guarding someone else’s children. But he tries.

Edrick is the name his wife chooses. Edrick, after some long-dead king of winter. Edrick, because she wants to honor her father, but cannot say his name without reliving her sorrow. He likes the name well enough, for if ever the north had a child, it is this one. His hair is dark and straight, and his eyes are blue-gray, still changing. He looks just like his father, with a bit of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell thrown in, for refinement. He will be tall, and healthy, and smart. The Maester says he is a quick learner.

Just now, he is learning to walk. Sandor stands a few paces away from him and lets him stagger forward, eventually hitting his father’s knees. Sandor tries taking a step back, then another, to see if the boy will keep going, and he does. When he falls, he doesn’t fuss or cry; he just gets back up and keeps staggering. Quick learner, indeed.

When it seems the boy is getting tired, Sandor scoops him up and heads in the direction of the nursery. He takes his time in getting there. He likes to hold his son, wants to hold him. Now that he isn’t a babe anymore, he isn’t scared of hurting him. He takes it as a good sign when Edrick falls asleep on his shoulder—he must be doing something right. The boy trusts him, at least. Maybe he’ll encounter his wife on the way to the nursery. He wants her to see.


	21. Roseglass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff. Sansa dares to be happy and carefree. Sandor is perpetually bad-tempered (on the surface).

She does not expect him to be romantic _._ She does not want him to be, not truly. She wants him to be as he is; all the good and bad, all the smooth and rough. She wants him to be honest and steady; unapologetic, without veil or pretense. And he is—for her. Always for her.

She does not expect Sandor to be a courtly lover; she knows the singers will never write songs about how he loved his lady wife. His deeds are small and private, meant for no one but her. He left a tiny white flower on her embroidery basket, once. It was a weed in truth, but she thought that no golden rose had ever been given so sincerely. She pressed it in a book and kept it, much to his dismay.

He holds her hand at dinner in the great hall when he thinks no one is paying attention, and that pleases her most of all. He sees no purpose in hand holding, of course, but he knows that she likes it. She finds it funny that he is all scowls and grumbles above the table, and all besotted green boy underneath. And if he cuts a hard glance at her and asks her what she’s smiling about, maybe she can’t stop herself from laughing.


	22. Memory

He does not wear red. He does not drink red either, at least not often. He does not chew mint, or speak of her mother, or speak of the past much at all.

He does not pull her down into his lap: he learned that the hard way. The first time his wife tensed and squirmed from him, it sliced him; it cut him and bled him. Even after he figured out _why_ , it still hurt. He hurt for her, he realized. And he shook with rage.

He does not come up behind her; he does his best not to startle her. He does not grab her or jerk her, or pin her, or trap her, not unless she tells him to.

He does not come to his wife under darkness. She keeps their chambers lit up like the damned great hall, even when they lie together. Especially then. She looks at him, full-on, unflinching. She keeps her eyes on him until her body shudders and she can’t keep them open.  She sees him, and she calls him by name, says it over and over like she expects him to disappear. If that’s how his daft little wife wants it, so be it. He loves his name on her lips. For his part, he proves to her that he is her husband, all flesh and blood and heat, and not some shape from a memory.


	23. Grace in Battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm no longer sure if these are drabbles or oneshots. At any rate, the author does as she pleases, and thanks you for staying tuned.

They truly are two different animals, she thinks. And you cannot put two animals in a cage together and expect they will never fight.

After all these years, he is more bark than bite, but oh, how his barking can sting. She has hardened herself to others in varying degrees, iced herself, allowing no one the privilege of being close enough to harm her, no one save for him. And this is his repayment? She wishes that she were a little bird: she would peck at his eyes just now. If she were a wolf, she would put the Hound on his back and see how he likes it.

On the occasion that he is being awful and saying awful, incorrigible things, she cannot be close to him, not then. It comes too close to how he used to be, or what he used to be. It scares her. Even though she understands, knows that even he doesn’t know why he is so angry sometimes, and it makes him sick every time he upsets her, it still frightens her. She will have no part of it.

On the occasion that he is being awful, an occasion of him being drunk often follows. _Pathetic,_ she tries to think to herself. Let him have his stupid wine and be miserable—it is what he deserves. But, she can never keep it up. She knows him too well. Invariably, her defenses crumble, and she waits for him to come to her. Invariably, he does: just-drunk, with his forehead sweating and his hands shaking, and he apologizes for everything he’s ever done to her in a long expectoration of guilt, like he can’t quite tell if he’s in the present or the past, but he’s sorry all the same.

She cannot condone his actions, nor can she make excuses for them, and so she doesn’t. She takes his apologies because they are owed to her. She forgives him, because she loves him, and because she knows no other way than to brush aside his hair and kiss his cheek, and pretend not to notice his tears.


	24. Child's Play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy McFluffNuggets. I am so ashamed.

She tried throwing a snowball at him, once. Exactly once. Her southron husband did not share her love for snow, it seemed. Next, she flicked him with water as they lazed in the hot springs. He did not flick her back, but he seemed more suspicious than angry, which was progress. He did not want to play cyvasse, or maybe he did not know how. That was more or less fine with her: it reminded her too much of court.

She hid one of his boots behind her back as he was getting dressed one morning. He just looked down at his remaining boot, scanned the room for wayward teething puppies, then turned to look at his wife like she had taken leave of her senses. She tossed the boot toward his feet and left the room with a huff.

Her last attempt began in the Godswood, with her bumping his arm and then taking off in a run. It ended with her being caught from behind and brought down gently onto the soft forest floor, where it became clear that he was not interested in child’s play.

After some time, she lost hope. She wondered if Sandor had ever played at anything besides war, ever since he happened to play with the wrong toy. Perhaps she was being childish and should just leave him be, let him be surly and morose. One day, as they were standing side-by-side, inspecting the renovations being made to one of the towers, she felt a sharp tug on her sleeve. When she looked at him, he was staring ahead like nothing had happened. After a moment, she felt the tug again.

A smile pulled at the corners of her lips. Perhaps he was not hopeless, after all.


	25. Stretching Scars II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, there are only two weeks left in the semester, and I need to get my arse in gear for exams. I might be absent for a good chunk of time after this update. However, I am still enjoying writing these little snippets and would like to continue once the storm has passed. In the meantime, I would love it if you let me know what you would like to see more of (or less of) in the future. Thank you to those who read my work, it brightens my day. :)

He can’t stand the way she fiddles with her dresses. She adjusts the fabric constantly, never happy with the way it falls. Their son has passed his first nameday, yet she still frets about her figure. He can’t see much of a difference from before. Wherever there might be a difference, it is a good one, as far as he’s concerned.

She was bound and determined not to get stretching scars. She covered herself with oils and balms, and did not limit her activity until the very end. It worked, for the most part. Some marks still snuck onto her hips, to her utter despair. He walked in on her once as she was dabbing at herself with a cloth dipped in buttermilk, entirely vexed. He threw his head back and laughed. There are some things about women he will never understand.

He can’t say that he hates the way her stomach curves softly, different from the taut plane it used to be, before the babe and when winter still reigned. He rests his hand there sometimes like he did when she was with child; maybe he hopes that she will be again. He can’t say that he minds the span of her hips, or the little lines that cross them. She feels perfect under his palms, and tastes sweet under his lips when he drags them across her scars, and lower. To hells with her dresses—when she is laid bare beneath his mouth and his tongue, she seems to find little worth fretting about.


	26. Words are Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not actually here right now, I am writing a theory paper. Yes, that's it, a theory paper. Definitely not fanfiction. Not in the slightest. -scuttles away-

He does not tell her. He cannot not tell her. The words choke in his throat like a swallow of sawdust. He knows he should say it because she deserves it, because she deserves all the sweet words ever spoken, yet these words will not come. He does not understand—gods know he has told her all manner of other things, what makes this any different?

Surely she must see it: it has wound itself into his every motion and thought, he does not live apart from it. He can’t put it into words, so he puts it into all else. It is in the snag of his fingers when he loosens her hair or her lacings, and in the warm flat of his palm as it rests on her waist. It is in the brush of his rough lips on hers, in the curl of his fingers into her hips, in the weight of his body holding her down, holding her close. It is in the hot, ragged breath on her neck, which could have been a confession of love, if he were another man. If he were a better man.

He holds her at night, with her head on his chest and one of her legs swung over him. He holds his wife because he likes to, and he doesn’t give two shits if that brands him old and soft. Her little sleeping breaths tickle across his skin, and the crown of her head rests close to his mouth. There would be the place to put the words, he thinks, whisper them low into her hair while she is half-gone and not likely to remember. He resolves he will say them. One of these nights, he will say them.


	27. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, theory paper is done. I do apologize: this one is not exactly celebratory.

She drags it out of him over the months, over the years. She knows how to do it. She knows that gentle dance, singing soft and sweet to a wounded animal, bringing it down. _His sister, his mother, his father. Gregor._ She wants to know, and he needs to say it. _The Lannisters. Cersei. Joffrey._ Over time, the last shards of his rage rip out of him like arrows, and she does her best to sew him up. _The Blackwater, when he ran, when he shattered._ All the anger burns out, then there is just sadness, like waters settling back down after a storm, heavy and dark.

There will come acceptance, in time. She, of all people, knows the way of it. This is the song everyone must sing.

She wraps herself around him in the silver twilight. He is so large that it is comical, but she tucks her knees in behind his, throws her arm across his waist, wriggles into his shoulder blades and breathes. She wants to comfort him. If she can convince him that they are alright, they are safe; they are going to be a family now, and they will not be torn asunder—if only she can convince him, perhaps she can then convince herself.


	28. Challenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am planning on adding one or two more before I leave this for the time being and (hopefully) work on something else. I have a couple of other ideas I want to play with--nothing too long and involved, but a step up from drabbles.

He does not expect her to be anything other than herself. She has different selves on different days, but he knows a thing or two about that. She forgets sometimes, and she slips back behind her walls and her courtesies—she gives him what he wants. He doesn’t want her to do that with him. Never with him.

He calls her out on it. He won’t have it. And if it means he has to be an ass, so be it—he loves to see her fire, her flare of anger, her wolf snarling to the surface. That is what she was meant to be. He will remind her of it until the day he dies.

Sometimes he thinks she is going to slap him. He thinks she just might, as she stands facing him, her eyes flashing with fury and venom poised on the tip of her tongue. He draws her out of herself with a sneer and a challenge, because that is the way he knows. He thinks she must hate him sometimes, but she doesn’t—she loves him. By some jape of the gods, she loves him. And, when all is said and done, she doesn’t slap him. She takes his hand and squeezes, grateful for the reminder.


	29. On the Wing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth, folks. Hope you all have been well. Here is a small offering. It's hard to get back into the swing of things, and nothing really seems quite right, but it's all part of the process I guess.

She likes handling her husband’s affairs herself. She makes much of his clothing by her own hand, with care in every even stitch, and knows his measures by heart so the seamstress needn’t touch him. She fears no competition from a craggy old seamstress, but she finds that she can be a jealous bird.

He will not wear much finery; the most she can get away with is some light embroidery. Mostly dogs and wolves. Sometimes she will stitch a tiny red bird near a seam or hemline to see if he notices. If he does, he doesn’t ask her to take it out.

Just now, she does not have time to decorate her husband with birds. Her time quickly approaches, and the babe will need new clothes and wrappings. She still has some that Edrick has outgrown, but it never hurts to have more.

He finds her in her private rooms, stitching away the evening. She makes to pack up her sewing and join him in their larger chambers, but he gestures for her to stay. He surprises her by lowering himself to sit on the floor at her feet. Facing her, with his long legs crossed, he pulls her feet into his lap and removes her slippers. She begins to protest, but when his hands begin to gently squeeze her tired muscles, she loses her words. This is not something she would ask him to do. His hands move from her feet to her tense calves, and she smiles. 


	30. Coalesce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, thank you for such a warm welcome back! I am not going to say this is "finished," because I think I will end up coming back to it, but I am also working on something new right now. Stay tuned!

What would she do without him behind her? He is quiet for a large man, even in his own home, even with a bit of a limp. He rarely walks by her side: he prefers to follow close behind her. Safer that way, he says. It turned a few heads when they were newly married, but that time has long since passed. Protector, lover, shadow. What would she do without his boots hitting the stones in a low and steady rhythm? What would the sea be like without waves?

He holds a lord’s title, but that is just a formality. She is the lord of the castle, and everyone knows. Once, it was a hushed scandal—what kind of man stands behind a throne while his wife rules? Over time, the people warmed to him. Her husband’s sword cuts flesh like any other man’s, and his will is like the ancient gray stones that make the walls. A man can elevate a woman without lowering himself, she thinks. She wishes the rest of the world would catch on.

He mutters something to the guard outside their chambers and closes the doors. It is midday, but she does not care. Who will stop them from hiding from their duties for an hour? They do not often get this chance. _Spend this time while you can_ , something in her soul whispers. How many years have they lived in comfort and safety? How long can that last? His arm goes around her waist, his other hand drapes her long hair over one shoulder, and his lips brush her neck like they have all the time in the world. Somehow there is still a reaction, halfway between shivering and melting. _All this time._ She shoves her ruinous thoughts away, and turns to face him.


	31. Battleborn

This time, he was far less patient with the maester and the fluffed-up hen of a midwife who tried to keep him at bay. Sansa would never ask him to sit with her through her pains, but he could see the worry in the awkward way she held herself, and in the tightness around her lips.

It took far too long. Longer than last time. He didn't know much about the whole ordeal, but he knew it was supposed to get easier. Sometimes she wanted his hand to hold, and sometimes she wanted her back or her leg stroked like a scared animal. Sometimes she pushed him away altogether. Toward the end, she was near-delirious and sweating. He stayed with her, his stomach roiling like a pot of boiled soup, more pointless than a pillar in a battlefield. 

If years were measured in toil, this would have been a decade. And then he had a daughter.


	32. To Find Rest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This goes with the last one. Sandor the Sentimental. Sandor the Sap.

The babe was bold and healthy, that was plain to see. She came into the world squalling and screaming. _Keep your fight_ , he thought. _You will need it._

He had wanted daughters. He was scared of sons. Now that he had one of each, the truth of it all seeped into him, dense and heavy like a rolling fog. They both terrify him. And they are not safe, not either them, but especially not her. He would teach them how to defend themselves, if that was the only bloody thing he ever managed to accomplish as a father. Gods help the man or beast who tried to harm them before then.

He held his daughter in the dim morning light. He didn't know what he should call her--he would ask his little wife when she woke. Babe and mother were both exhausted, but not him. He was wide awake—mesmerized, just as he had been with his first. It was hard to tell what color her hair was, but he hoped for something between russet and copper. Eventually, the wet nurse came to collect her new charge, and he let her go reluctantly. He could have looked at her forever, until the moon turned black.

He quietly rose from the chair and crossed the room to the bed, where his wife took the rest that was due to her. Gingerly, he climbed onto the large featherbed, painfully aware of his inconvenient size. Above the covers, he arranged himself so that his leg was touching hers just so—he would feel it if she stirred, if she needed anything. Her breaths came in little lazy hums—she even _snored_ daintily, damn her—and he let himself close his eyes. Something washed over him on that slow, misty morning, despite his growing fears: something he might have been tempted to call peace, except he didn’t want to tempt fate.


	33. Something Borrowed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sandor's existential crises are my faaaavorite.

He thought he would die within a year of their marriage. _This is it_ , he thought. _This can't last_. Some jealous lord would off him. He would get some nasty pox and stain the sheets before he sputtered to an end. He had survived too much for too long. On their wedding night, the candles set her hair on fire, her skin smoldered unassumingly like a just-quenched blade, and he was consumed. He had never felt this type of touch before, maybe had never _felt_ before.

A year passed. Two years passed. Then years spun by like a wagon wheel, ever turning. Babes were born with midnight in their hair and skies in their eyes, and he begged not yet, not now.

Ten years of thrice-borrowed time. Ten years of her hands leaving scorch marks on his chest and shoulders, of her words like strongwine coaxing out his words and rages. Ten years of a featherbed under a ceiling under a castle, all the comforts a man could want. Ten years later, her perfect mouth a perfect circle around his manhood in an anniversary salute, he decided to stop living like a dead man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real author's note: THANK YOU to all who read/have read these. Such a small thing brings me so much joy and fulfillment. Due to this being my last year in college, and due to an original novel I have decided to finally take the plunge on, I am no longer planning any long Sansa/Sandor fics at the moment. I doubt anyone cares overmuch, but I just wanted to be honest in case anyone was waiting to hear from me. I may hang around in regards to Touch, but that's it for now. Thank you for accepting my humble offering to the fandom. :P


	34. Weight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this thought that many of the men/male rulers will not survive the war (wars? ice age?) and quite a few women will find themselves in charge.

She was fallible. Every ruler was and had always been, from the time of the First Men and onward. She had a steeper hill to climb: she was one of the First Women.

Every drop of life's blood that was expected of a king was expected of her tenfold, and she knew it. Her words and commands were scrutinized. Her silks and woolens, her pearls and hairpins, all these belonged to her people as well. Her husband shouldered much of their disdain, commanding her forces, affirming her every move when others hoped he would raise challenge. Her children did not escape the criticism. They were always too tall, too Southron, too educated or not educated enough, too brash, too quiet, and so on. Sansa's neck knotted from the stress. Her cheeks and forehead hurt from holding her expression in place day in and day out. Sometimes she wanted nothing more than to shrug off the weight of the world, be a pretty little wife and mother, dress her babes in frills and play the high harp, but that life was lost, or had never existed in the first place.

On a good day, she left the world at the threshold and drifted into her chambers for a dreamless sleep. On a bad day, her fingers fumbled with her sleeves and her heart hammered against her ribs, beating like a fist on an oak door. She would not hear his footsteps, lost as she was. His entrance would be a warm, calloused palm on her shoulder, a staying of her shaking hands. He performed it well, this task of peeling the fret off of her in layers, her skirts hitting the floor along with a thousand worries.

Some nights she needed an escort to her feather pillow, a warm body to rest against and nothing more, and he provided. Some nights she needed to feel alive, to feel like the woman who was before and beneath the queen, and he provided. His hands and lips were praise and balm; she found salvation in their featherbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sansa kicks ass and keeps her Sansahood. Sandor is a Man Who Knows What He's About.


	35. Lineage

Sandor thought he was ugly, even before the scars. He hoped and thought his children would take mostly after their mother. Sansa disagreed.

She would reverently stroke her son's raven hair, her chest squeezing at the knowledge he would pull away someday soon. The curve of her daughter's cheek felt like satin against her fingers. She wanted another so badly, when the time was right.

Edrick looked so much like his father that it took her breath away. Madelyn had her mother's look—that much could not be denied—but she had his solemn expressions, even as a young girl. They would both be beautiful, she thought, and not just with a mother's preference. Her naysayers said she ended the Stark line when she bedded down with a dog, but she knew the truth. Sandor Clegane was exactly what the Stark line needed: strength, resilience. Even viciousness. Theirs would be a long, brutal fight.

Her husband thanked the gods that their babes were nothing like him, but Sansa thanked the gods that they were. They would survive.


	36. Lather

After the snows had melted and the immediate repairs had been made, she ordered a bathhouse to be built in the bowels of the castle. It was for everyone's use, of course, but she built it particularly for him. Her new husband had a thousand ailments, few of which he was aware of. He noted the stabs of pain in his leg, but not the tension in his shoulders, the hard clamp of his teeth, the constant and repressed shivering that marked his newness to the north. Naturally, she thought it a romantic idea. It was just like her lord father building a sept for her lady mother.

The natural springs made it hotter than any bath in a tub could ever be. It took some coaxing to get him into the steaming water—it was a good burn, she told him, and he glared his daggers at her. After a string of curses, he lowered himself in beside her. She soaped him up with her very own lemon-and-milk soap, and that was the end of his pouting. Sansa savored the moment. He was happy enough to let her stroke his cock in their marriage bed, but shifted under her fingertips when she simply wanted to explore him. It would never do.

He was not limp as a ragdoll as she had wanted, but it was something. He let her wash his hair, and did not pull away when her fingers edged up to the burned parts, even if he did remark that most ladies did not bathe _with_ their dogs.


	37. House Words

Her washcloth turned up red and brown, the colors of suffering, so she dragged his skin until he was clean. He was newly home from battle. She pieced him back together; it was as natural to her as suckling a babe or putting one foot in front of the other.

Sansa had sent him out, and now she would bring him back. She had found that the remedy for battle-sickness was much like the one for freezing or sadness: it involved the removal of clothes, the press of skin, the promise of all the time in the world. It followed death and preceded new life. She had suffered enough to learn the songs of rendering and renewal.

She held him. He shook from any number of things, be he would heal. Her family, her duty, her honor. He was all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be clear, I think that Sansa (as an empathetic, caring, beautiful, perfect cinnamon role type person) would find comfort and joy for herself in helping and caring for others. I think there will always be a part of her that rejoices in being good. When I make her take care of Ser Baggage, it's not only for his good. Thanks for reading and commenting on the last one. You guys are awesome. This one's dramatic, but who cares? (Noooooot meeeeee...)


	38. Words are Wind II

Sandor was no singer. Smoke and screams had taken his voice, and he did not know how to string the right words together, besides. He had no name for the shade of her hair, or the smell of her skin. He did not know how to tell her he liked her teeth of all bloody things, how they were white and lined up straight because that just seemed to fit her. Yes, all she did was perfect, even having teeth. _Perfect_ might have been the closest he could get, but even that sounded hollow. It would be like calling the sky perfect, or a healthy babe. It wasn’t big enough.

Maybe he got close, once or twice, after a few years. Sometimes he fumbled out some half-mad mutterings when he was in his cups, but those didn’t count. Nor did things whispered into her neck after coupling. Any man could speak nonsense. Sandor meant it.

All these things rested under his tongue, unannounced. Sandor hoped his fingertips were enough, grazing across her here and there, like one gropes for an amulet hanging around his neck, expecting to find it gone only because he values it above all else.


	39. Playing Coy

Sansa grew used to waking up alone. Sandor did not enjoy the unforgiving morning light, nor was he content to laze around when there were things that needed tending to. She would wake to find his pillow cold, his boots missing. The light did not matter: they had married each other in full sight, had they not? And yet, evasion was something he did without thinking. She pictured him as a child, growing his hair and skulking around in shadows. Who was she to disrupt a lifetime of habit?

Except, after maybe a year or so, he found it bearable to stay abed longer. Sansa had stroked him into wakefulness one morning on a whim, and it had been largely effective at keeping him around. He had suddenly found less reason for an early start to the day. Odd thing, that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments are so, so lovely. These are fun to write, so I'm glad you're still enjoying them. :)


	40. The Butcher

When her rule was new, he had given her his leal service in a dozen ways. He had been her advisor, her shield, her master-at-arms. He had been her captain, rasping orders at her small household guard until it passed his meticulous inspection. He had been her council, her friend, her husband. Back then, with so few to fill her household, he had been her gaoler, as well. He had been her executioner.

Sansa would have happily lived all the rest of her days without seeing another headless man's legs twitch. This, she soon learned, was one of the necessities of power that she was ill-suited to, both in body and spirit. Still, the task remained.

He handled it with the singular efficiency she had come to recognize: one clean cut, one powerful blow.

That night, she tried fruitlessly to separate the man from the sword, tried not to look at his hands and see the flex of muscles around a hilt. She could not reconcile the brutal and the gentle, the killer and the lover. They existed in the same man, as night and day exist in the same span of hours. Sometime before dawn, she recalled that he had been born to the sword in much the same way that she had been born to an embroidery needle, and neither of them had much say in the matter. Come morning light, she kissed his knuckles, and thanked the gods that they had been fashioned to contain entire worlds.


End file.
